My Performance Review for 2019 and Writing Goals for 2020

Happy New Year!

A year ago, on January 2, 2019, I posted my performance review for 2018 and listed goals for 2019. So how did I do this past year?

My 2019 goals were

• To publish my fourth historical novel. My Hope Secured was published in late October, so I succeeded in this goal, despite the distractions of building a house and moving.
• To decide on my next writing project. In November, I started a new contemporary novel, a sequel to the corporate thriller I published in 2013 under a pseudonym. I’m 20,000 words into the book, so I have a long way to go. But it’s underway, so I met this goal.
• To invest 10-20% of my 2018 sales in paid advertising or other marketing venues, and to continue my blog and newsletter and explore other marketing activities. I ran a few Amazon ads this past year, but I can’t say I invested strategically, nor to the extent I had envisioned. I spent about 5% of my Amazon royalties on Amazon ads, though I had other marketing expenses as well. I also continued this blog and my monthly newsletter. I’d say I achieved this goal at a minimal level.

Overall, I was pleased with my progress as a writer in 2019. It was a challenging year personally, so keeping any momentum going on my writing was difficult.

For 2020, I am setting some stretch goals—more ambitious than I’ve managed in the past.

My primary goal for 2020 is to draft, edit, and publish the contemporary novel I’m working on now. I know I can get it drafted, but I’m not sure whether I can do all the editing necessary to shape it into a publishable book. I’ve set a target of completing the first draft by early May. Then I’m hoping to edit it and format it for publication by Halloween. That’s ten months from now—I’ve never written a novel from blank page to publication in less than fifteen months. So this will be a huge challenge.

At the same time, I want to do the research necessary to write my next historical novel in the Oregon Chronicles series. I’ve decided the next book will take place in 1864, fourteen years after My Hope Secured ends. That means I have to research a whole new decade in Oregon history. I doubt I can start writing this novel until 2021 . . . and it might be the middle of the year, if my current WIP goes slowly.

In 2020, I will also keep up this blog and my newsletter. And I really should give my website a makeover.

But a bigger issue I need to resolve around marketing this year is whether to integrate my pen name with my real name. I’m trying to decide how to handle my pseudonymous persona. She is me, but a side of me I don’t reveal very often on this blog.

So that’s my 2020, at least with respect to writing. I have some personal goals as well. For more about my 2020 goals, see here.

I also have some longer-term writing goals. I want to have published ten full-length novels by the year in which I turn 70 (2026 . . . I’ll give myself until the end of that year.) I have five published now, and this year I’m drafting my sixth and researching the seventh. I have ideas to take me through the tenth, and then some. It’s doable, but will require continued focus.

I started writing in 2007 and published my first novel in 2013, so getting five more novels published in six years will be a stretch. I am not a fast writer. I want to be more productive, but I also want to write the best books I can. If that means I have to sculpt away at them, draft by draft, then that is what I will do. I’m a better writer than I was when I began, but I have room for improvement.

But at least I don’t have to build a house this year.

What is your main goal for 2020?